The One With Too Much Information

I've mentioned, I'm sure, before my love/hate relationship with facebook. I love (or at least like a little) facebook because I hate (hate HATE) talking on the phone, and it allows me to have interaction with people like that girl I had lunch with that one time on a second grade field trip. Lifelong Friends, you know what I'm sayin'?

Recently, I went through a major clean-out of my facebook friends. I, at one point, had almost 600 "friends." Then I began realizing that a few of them were just people I flat out didn't like, a bunch of them were people I only knew peripherally, and the rest I used to care about, but now do not. Now, I think I have. . .200-ish? And these people fall into the following categories:

1) Family

2) People I actually like (some from Category 1 cross over into Category 2.)

3) People I keep on my list because I might one day need something (An example of this is the class president from high school. . .he sent out the invitation for the 5-year class reunion on facebook, so I'm certain he'll do the same thing for reunion years that I GIVE a crap about.)

. . .and finally

4) People whose lives are such a train wreck that I have to keep them on my list just for my fill of drama that I'm not involved in (some from Categories 1, 2, and 3 are also on this list.)

The people in Category 4 are those people that, despite leaving them on my list, I don't really understand. The people who put every. single. thing. that happens to them on facebook. The kind of people you have to take off your feed because if you don't, it looks like:

9:44 a.m. Sally McOvershare is in the bathroom.

9:53 a.m. Sally McOvershare just took the best crap of her life! LOLz!

10:01 a.m. Sally McOvershare can't decide what she wants for breakfast.

10:15 a.m. Sally McOvershare decided to have waffle and bacon for breakfast LOL!

10:32 a.m. Sally McOvershare is having the WORST CRAMPS EVER! PMS is THE WORST! Like this status if you agree!!!1!!!1!1!!1!1!!

Stuff like that.

What gets even more interesting, though, is when you get someone who feels like facebook is actually called dramabook, and they tell you more than you. . .ever cared to know about their personal life.

8:34 p.m. Kelsey von Info-Overload can't believe her baby's daddy isn't going to pay child support this month.

9:48 p.m. Kelsey von Info-Overload is sooooo mad that she can't have sex tonight!

10:03 p.m. Kelsey von Info-Overload is thinking of calling social services on her child's father! What kind of ass-jerk doesn't even come over when he says he's going to? I can't believe I ever had sex with that guy!

11:06 p.m. Kelsey von Info-Overload just talked to her son's father. We fought, but then decided to have sex. I may have forgotten to take my Pill today. OOOppps! LOL!

You know. . .stuff like that.

There's this girl I know. . .I'll call her Pat. Pat has, in the last 2 years, broken up with her kids' father, her kids' father has gotten into a new relationship, she moved to Oklahoma to be with some guy, they broke up, her kids' father took the kids, which may or may not have been court-mandated, she moved again, she got into a relationship with this guy who finalized his divorce on July 13, they broke up because he's got a new girlfriend, and oh yeah, she's pregnant with his baby now, but she's decided to keep it.

What you may or may not be interested in knowing is that I haven't talked to this girl since approximately February of 2009. So how do I know all this?

Because she posts her entire life on facebook.

Every time she was mad at her Baby Daddy, it went on facebook. Their fights went on facebook. The fights they got in on facebook were then commented upon by their family members.

He posted, when he got divorced, "yay! i'm finally divorced!" This was the slew of comments that ensued (these are verbatim, so misspellings and egregious uses of punctuation and grammar are NOT because of me:

Girl 1: Really? OFicially??

Girl 2: what?! wow!!! it's about damn time too!!!

The Guy: yep i'm officially free. . .kinda :)

Girl 1: your not free by ANYYY means! and your both already planning new weddings?!? ya'll are nuts (I'd like to comment here that it makes me CRAZY when people spell y'all like that. CRAZY. Do people not know BASIC RULES OF CONTRACTIONS?!)

"Pat": We're not planning yet! he still can't get married for six months!

Girl 1: GOOD! I know your smitten but trust me...(GUY'S NAME)??! lmao. JK what day are you guys leaving me again?

"Pat": The 29th! We just packed up the kitchen!

Guy's Mom: You are far from Free! Every time you are around I become Broke!!! LOL

The Guy: ha ha love you mom :)

So, I mean. . .Not only is it bad spelling and punctuation. . .it's just too much information! Friends contributing to it, etc. Pat couldn't have just said, "haha, no, no wedding planning!" She had to get all specific.

The Guy is in a new relationship now anyway, after having broken up with Pat. . .on August 11, the new girlfriend was leaving little hearts on his status updates, at the same time Pat was, on August 18, they were all lovey dovey, and on August 29, New Girlfriend was saying what a great night they had together. So. . .somewhere in there.

My point is, I shouldn't KNOW ALL THIS. One might argue that I don't have to read it, and that's true, but it's really just my desire to see drama that doesn't involve me unfold. It's like celebrity gossip. Except celebrities? They just do things and people find out about it. With facebook, people do things NO ONE has to know about, but they feel the need to tell you about it anyway.

I realize this is getting all rambly, but one more thing I want to share. Facebook also brings out the idiot in already idiotic people. Pat updated (after she told everyone she was pregnant) saying, "I feel so horrible. I just wanna be able to eat a good size meal again!" and the guy who got her pregnant was all, "Lol sorry!!!"

My final thought is I KNOW why people do stuff like that. . .put their dirty laundry on facebook. Because they want the attention. In my opinion, this girl is a freaking idiot. She's a trainwreck anyway, and now she's bringing a new baby into that mess. But all her friends are all, "You're sooo brave!" "You're soooo heroic."

No. You guys? It takes no heroism to have sex without protection, and it take no bravery to have to deal with your mistakes. It's just something you DO. There are exceptions, obviously, but in this case? I have all ideas this was no accident, and now she's attention whoring it up.

The point of all this was, your dirty laundry should stay in the hamper.

The One Where The List Tries to Make Me Angry/Sad

The list.

Day 08 -- a photo that makes you angry/sad

I was going to do one of each, one that made me angry and one that made me sad, but I decided I deal with anger better than sadness.

So here it is. The picture that makes me angry. And, come to think of it, a little sad, too.

Yeah, I can just hear the collective, ". . . . . .huh?" Let me e'splain. (Also, I did not take this picture. I do not know who took this picture. I stole it off of facebook.)

OK, what's written on the bridesmaids' thighs is the Greek letters for Phi Sigma Pi. (Phi Sigma Pi Thigh?) It was the honors fraternity (Yeah, fraternity. Not sorority. It was co-ed.) that I belonged to in college. I joined because, for one, my cousin was a member at her college in the mountains and said it was awesome, because I really wanted to wear Greek letters (I thought they were badass), and because I desperately wanted to belong to SOMETHING in college, and when I went to the interest meeting for the campus sororities, all of the girls looked at me like I'd walked into the wrong room. ("Um, the Brunette Girls in Vintage Dresses and Chunky Heels meeting is three doors down. This is the meeting for the Blonde Girls Who Wear Prada and Stilettos.")

So I pledged and joined Phi Sig. It was. . .truth be told, it was awkward the entire time I was a member. I did. not. fit. in. I had a couple of friends in the group, but I never really meshed with most of the people.

So, part of the pledging process involves being assigned a "Big Brother." (This stands whether you're a dude or a non-dude. I was a brother. Everyone in the group is a brother. I still laugh when I get e-mails from Nationals that begin, "Dear Brother (Mylastname)." It's funny.

My Big was the bride in the photo, Jenn. When assigned to me, Jenn told me that she'd requested me amongst the initiates. Jenn was cool. We had to spend time with our Bigs weekly, and she would always bring me a little present, and we did cool stuff.

So, I get in to the fraternity, and all is good in the world.

This one semester comes up where we had SO! MANY! PLEDGES! and there were only, like, 8 members. (Long story, man. Long story.)

Jenn had already had me as a Little and another girl, Erica, as a Little. When it came to this semester, she had three: Holly, Alia, and Bethany. (Bridesmaid on the far left and the two to the right of the picture.)

Once these girls came around, it's like Jenn had never known me. They were a really crazy bunch of girls, and I'm guessing that they were just more fun than me.

Really long, "Poor me, Sarah has no friends" story short, I had no idea Jenn had even gotten married. She got married, and had her Fun Littles as her bridesmaids. So when I saw that picture, I was. . .well, it didn't feel great.

I was going to go on a bit about this, but I have to think about what I was going to say before I say it. I don't want it to come out like I'm whining, which I'm already in danger of having done.